


lightning in my heels

by devil divine (jaegerjagues)



Category: Frontier (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, alluded violence, everything is just fine elizabeth didn't die, implied Declan Harp/Grace Emberly, s2 fix-it, trust me - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 17:50:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12965031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaegerjagues/pseuds/devil%20divine
Summary: Mr. and Mrs. Elizabeth Carruthers, had she lived.





	lightning in my heels

Elizabeth Carruthers stumbles out of Samuel Grant's home blindly, struggling to hold a breath in her lungs and bleeding from her head.  
  
Every step makes the edges of her vision creep in closer, the world around her a mess of greys and whites and blacks. The noise of Montreal is muted, heart erratic and loud in her ears, too loud for her to hear anything else.

She knows she should look behind her, make sure Grant or any of his errand boys aren't after her to finish the job, but her insular mission is simply to keep forging on.

There's a thumping in her head that is slowly but surely syncing up with the beating of her heart, each motion bringing on a new wave of pain that she is barely aware of.

Her vision begins to tilt, to slide first to the left and then to the right.

Then everything  
                                                                                    goes  
                                                                                                                                            dark.

 

* * *

Douglas paces up and down the hall just outside of Elizabeth Carruther's bedroom, never straying more than a shout away.

The doctor is in with her still, as well as Josephette who had come home the second the runner reached her.

Elizabeth looked more like a corpse than she had a woman, blood still dripping freely from her head, when she had been carried in nearly an hour ago. A small, harried looking man had followed closely, large bag tucked into the crook of his elbow and yelling for one of the maids to bring hot water and rag immediately, so help him God.

The entire situation had taken him quite by surprise, only minutes after he had finally gotten himself up and readied for the day.

He's still numb to most of it, like what's going on now is happening to someone else. Maybe this is a dream he'll wake up from later, confusing and upsetting but still not happening.

Hours later, Douglas knows that this is real.

It hasn't hit him fully, but he's resigned to accept it. He's been in to see Elizabeth for just a moment, room dark and Josephette curled up in the bed next to her. The two women are slowly-breathing shadows in the dark, Elizabeth on the side of the bed farthest from the door.

There are bandages wound round his wife's head, stitches pulling her skin tight, keeping her face together. He hasn't seen the damage up close himself, doesn't have the stomach for it, but the good doctor and Josephette had told him enough.

Satisfied and hollow, he backs out of the room, closing the door quietly.  
He's nearly to the foot of the staircase when Malcolm comes barreling in from outside, slamming the big oak door behind him, gust of winter air heralding his presence.

“Ah, fuck, Douglas,” Malcolm says once he catches sight of his elder brother. “You look like you've gone six rounds with a starvin' bear. That witch is that bad, then?”

All the fight has gone from him, fled his bones, left him feeling empty. Douglas shakes his head, motions for his brother to follow him as he heads towards Elizabeth's study.

He doesn't speak until he's past the doors, Malcolm hot on his heels. “What is it you know?”

“All I know is that somethin' happened, Douglas. I just don't know what is was.”

He wanders listlessly in the cold room; there is no fire in the grate, today, and the large windows do next to nothing to keep the chilll at bay.

“She went callin' on Samuel Grant earlier today, with a few of the Magistrates' men,” he explains haltingly. “Cobbs Pond was arrested. After that, 'm afraid I don't know. She was found in an alley with her head beaten in. The doctor doesn't know if she'll wake.”

“The bastard probably tried to kill her, and I don't fuckin' blame him. You should've annulled the marriage when you had the fuckin' chance,” Malcom spits. His brother's temper has always been short, and gauging what might set him off from one moment to the next has always been impossible. They've been on thin ice with each other as of late, as it is.

“Keep your voice down,” Douglas pleads quietly, settling himself into one of the plush chairs. There's a muscle spasm in his right leg, and he can't stop it from bouncing for the life of him.

“It's not like that bitch is going to hear us!” his brother half-shouts, voice rising as he continues on. “She's half-dead already, why don't you just go in there and finish the job?”

Violence has always come to Malcolm as easily as anger, as breathing, as waking up in the morning and putting your feet on the ground. He doesn't have to think before pulling a trigger, before swinging a fist, before palming a knife. Everything has always been kill or be killed to him, consequences be damned.

His thoughts must be clear on his face, because Malcolm comes closer to him, smelling strongly of whiskey.

“Don't be a fuckin' idiot, Douglas. You know she ain't gonna wake up. Suffocatin' her now would be a kindness. Just get it over with so we can move on.”

While Malcolm leans more toward violence, Douglas has always been the patient one. Not necessarily peaceful, by any account, but if words can handle a situation before the need to get physical, then that's the route he's going to take. He thinks his actions through, thinks of the consequences, and of the consequences of those consequences, before he even lifts a finger or opens his mouth.

“I won't do it,” he tells his brother, voice low and serious. “I won't kill my wife.”

“Oh,” Malcolm says, angry and mocking. “So the smarmy bitch is y'er wife now, is she? Not Widow Carruthers?”

“Yes, Malcolm. She is my wife. You weren't here when it happened, though, so I forgive you for forgettin'.”

The frustrated noise Malcolm lets out is a mix of a yelp and a scream. He nearly sounds like a too-hot tea kettle.

“I was trying to get you out of prison, and I was tryin' to avenge Cedric! If anyone's doin' any forgivin' here, it'd be me, since you flew off the handle and married the witch!”

“What else was I supposed to do?” They've had this argument too many times to count, rehashed again and again with the same ending every time. “Just sit on my ass and wait for you to magically fix it? I saw my chance to get out, so I took it. She wasn't going to offer again.”

“And you sold your fuckin' soul in the process! It can all be fixed, lickety-split, if you'd just go upstairs and smother the hag!”

“Malcolm,” Douglas warns. “That's enough.”

“What are you, a coward?” he demands. He has himself worked into a lather, a hound with a scent that he's no ready to let go of. But he takes a moment to truly look at his brother, teeth gnawing mars into his lower lip. “No. Don't fuckin' tell me you love her, Douglas. That's—that's too much.”

Then, he starts to laugh, a cruel, brittle thing.

“Get out.”

Malcolm goes quiet mid-laugh, eyes focusing a little too sharply on his only living brother. The high color in his cheeks goes redder, skin pale as the snow outside amidst his rage.

“Fine,” he says finally. Baiting Douglas has never gone well for him in the past, not when his brother has reached the breaking point. “I'll leave you here to wallow in your misery, you fool.”

 

* * *

 

He doesn't want to leave Elizabeth in the house alone.

It's too quiet there, too much like a tomb. He doesn’t want to leave on the off chance she wakes and he's not there, that there's only the maids around, too cowed in her presence to be of any use.

Should she wake and find that her slowly expanding business has gone to shambles in her forced absence, however, it will be a different kind of hell to pay.

Douglas goes with the lesser of two evils, sitting quietly with his bedridden wife into the hours of the night and keeping her burgeoning empire running in the day. Josephette is a lifesaver for the latter, knowing the ins and outs of each part of the process, making it all seem simple as breathing.

Idle hands are the Devil's work, after all.

 

* * *

 

Elizabeth Carruther's survival is an open secret.

Douglas stays tight-lipped, discussing Elizabeth's condition only with the doctor and Josephette, a word of it never leaving the house. He avoids the questions, the demands, even the well meaning questions from the men in the warehouse, the girls in the factory, from her business partners and buyers.

He sees Cobbs Pond and Samuel Grant on the streets of Montreal occasionally, in the market and elsewhere.

There is no solid evidence against either of them, in regards to what happened to Elizabeth or anything else. There are only suspicions and coincidence, neither admissible in the court of law.

Douglas can do nothing but watch and wait.

* * *

Elizabeth wakes slowly.  
  
She feels light. Unattached to her body, like her limbs are not her own, like a spirit merely inhabiting a puppet. She can't seem to open her eyes, can't twitch her fingers.  
But her mind is active, racing, already scheming and sorting out everything she knows.  
  
Every morning since she was a girl, when she would wake up curled next to her sister under Mother's old quilt, she would sort through her thoughts. The last thing she remembered before going to sleep, what it was she had done the day before, plan out what she would do that day.  
  
When she tries it now, body feather-free and light, feeling as though she's still asleep, she recalls . . .  
Nothing. Or, not nothing.  
  
It's small things she recalls. Her goodbrother, storming out of her home after arguing with her husband. A conversation about dogs and their masters.  
After that, then there is nothing.  
  
Something had to have occurred, though. She shouldn't have these gaps in her memories, because surely she didn't go to bed in the middle of the afternoon.

There's someone in the room with her.  
  
It's a steady, even breathing that doesn't line up with what's coming out of her own chest that tips her off. A shuffle of fabric, like someone shifting in a chair, adds to her conviction.  
  
She can't quite get her eyes open, but she manages a twitch of her fingers. It's a hard thing to accomplish, feeling like she's trudging through the mud in boots too-big for her feet. Doing so sends a jolt through her body, like she's breaking through the veil to tie herself back to her mortal coil.

Whomever is in her room must have seen; there's a hitch in their breathing, more rustling.  
  
"Elizabeth?"  
  
Oh, joy. Her . . . husband. Puppet, on most occasions, save for the few moments she allows herself to be fond of him. Unfortunately, those occasions seem to be more and more frequent, much to her dismay.  
  
She folds all of it up neatly in her mind, places it all back in a farther corner to pull out and examine later. There are larger issues at hand, here, like why it's so hard to move, why there are chasms in her memory.  
  
Why is he in her room.  
  
There's a hand on hers, large and calloused and warm. His fingers curl around her own, over-familiar.  
  
_Why is he touching me_ , she thinks. _I didn't give him permission to touch me. This is out of line.  
_  
It takes nearly every ounce of energy she has to twitch her fingers again, an attempt to convey her disdain best as she can.  
  
"God, Elizabeth," Douglas says. It's quiet, whispered. "Are you finally goin' to wake?"  
  
She wants to snarl at him and demand what he speaks of, demand to know just what the devil is going on, but twitching her fingers seemed to take a lot more out of her than what she had.  
  
Darkness takes her again.

* * *

Douglas doesn't leave Elizabeth's room after the finger twitching.  
  
He's over-hopeful, he knows. From what the doctor has said, head-wounds like hers are hard to discern. She might never wake up. If, by some small miracle, she does wake, there may be a number of problems. The doctor has been hesitant to go any deeper than that, citing that waking up is the first hurdle Elizabeth will need to jump. Everything after that will be secondary.  
  
Josephette pops in for updates every now and then, even taking up a post next to Elizabeth on the bed and speaking to her. The topics range from the latest in the gossip mill to the everyday goings-on at the factory.  
  
She talks to Elizabeth just to talk, hoping the words might stir something in her.  
  
Nothing works; there is no more finger twitching, though the widow Carruthers seems to be resting worse than she had been before.  
  
Before, she had simply been a living corpse. Pale, bruises stark on her face, fading slowly with time; her wounds bright and angry. Now, she would shift in her sleep occasionally, heave a sigh every now and then. She actively swallowed when more than just a trickle of thin broth made it past her lips.  
  
It was progress, slow and hardly measurable. The doctor had come to see her, shortly after being told of a sign of alertness from the formidable business woman.  
  
He cautioned them about getting their hopes up.

* * *

Nearly a fortnight later, Elizabeth Carruther's opens her eyes.  
  
The room is blurry and dim, weak winter sun filtering through the open curtains, splashing into her face where she lies on her bed. The quilt is pulled up over her shoulders, tucked in behind her back in an effort to keep her warm.

She feels hollowed out and worn, like she fought a long battle. But she's never been one for physical fights, and she's never felt like this after more carnal activities.  
Her mouth feels as though it is filled with marbles, tongue too clumsy to properly work it's way around them. Trying to open her jaw sends waves of pain through her body, rocking her enough to make her moan aloud.  
  
"Elizabeth?"  
  
Ugh. Douglas, again. Still. He's sitting in the plush chair that she kept near her desk; now, it's been moved to a position next to her nightstand, and the Scot looks like he's part of it. How she didn't manage to notice him earlier, blurry vision or not, is a question she'll puzzle over later.  
  
"Elizabeth?" he repeats, and the way he says it--reverent, lovingly, joyful, makes her want to vomit. It niggles at something in the back of her mind, a half-remembered sigh, pushed to the side by the pain in her face.  
  
Humming in answer causes no pain to her body, but a bit to her ego. She hadn't hummed since she was a small girl, living in London with her parents. It was a childish noise, girlish and young, but she didn't want to attempt to speak. She focuses her eyes on him, too, but everything is still a blur.  
  
"Oh, Elizabeth."  
  
He moves to her bed, then, taking a seat on the edge of it and running a hand over her forehead.  
  
He is touching her. Without permission.  
  
Moving to pull herself out of his grasp makes her dizzy, blurred vision darkening completely just for a moment. Pushing the right side of her face into the pillow makes something in the room yowl in pain.  
  
Belatedly, fuzzily, at the noise of Douglas' soothing shushing, she realizes it's her the noise is coming from.  
  
“Elizabeth? Are you—are you awake?”  
  
Of course she's awake. Her eyes are open, aren't they? And it's not like she could imagine this kind of pain in her dreams. She goes to open her mouth to tell him as much.  
  
“Buggering,” is all she manages to announce. Her voice is weak, hoarse, foreign to her own ears. Her face feels funny, now that she thinks about it, stiff in some places and tight. Ever painful, though it's fading to a constant buzz at the front of her mind.  
  
"Here," he says, "let's get you sat up, then we'll talk."  
  
He's careful about where he puts his hands as he pulls her into a sitting position, hands first on her shoulder blades, then one on her ribcage, and then her face is pushed into his neck.  
  
She's too tired to argue, though every nerve in her body wants to push him away. To fight him. To scream at him, demand to know why he acts so familiar with her body; none of this was in their marriage contract.  
  
It's over nearly as quickly as it started; Douglas guides her down gently, back up against freshly fluffed pillows and her headboard. The change in position makes her lightheaded; the worried expression on Douglas' face makes her nauseous.  
  
She swallows; tries to grit her teeth together, only to find that some of them seem to be missing.  
  
"Happened?" The word is difficult, despite only being two syllables. The muscles in her face feel like they've been shortened, tightened, almost like she hasn't used them in ages.  
  
"You don't remember?" Douglas asks. His emotions are easy to read on his face, disappointment and pleasure warring in equal measure for a place in his features.  
  
She glares, delighted to find that it doesn't hurt like speaking does.  
  
"You don't remember," he repeats, more sure of himself.  
  
Douglas leans back a bit, takes the glasses off of his face. It's a nervous habit, one she learned quickly despite her endeavors to keep him at arms distance. He's ready to speak once he has them back on his face.  
  
"I signed the statement for the magistrates against Cobbs Pond," he explains, fluffing up the pillow behind her. "You went calling on Samuel Grant not long after; Pond was arrested. You were . . . you were found, a few hours later, in an alley. One of the girls recognized you and alerted the proper authorities. Someone beat you, Elizabeth. And then they left you for dead. I wasn't aware of most of it until a few of the local men carried you through the front door, a doctor behind them.  
  
"It's been two months," he says softly, moving off of her bed to sit in her second favorite chair. "I wasn't--we weren't sure if you'd ever wake. The doctor said it was only the slimmest of chances. That even if you did wake up, eventually, you might not. Be yourself."  
  
Nausea creeps up on her again, threatening, but she doesn't think there's anything in her body that might come up. Two months? Two months, wasted, because she couldn't handle herself in a physical match.  
  
It's a lot of information to take in, and she feels numb to all of it. The emotions will reach her later, she's sure, when she's had more time to sort through it all.  
  
"There's more, Elizabeth." He's gentle, the way he says her name, the way he's been this whole conversation. She isn't used to gentlemen actually being gentle.  
  
Her curiosity is piqued, now; what more could there be? What he's told her already is more than she was prepared to hear.  
  
"It might be easier if I just--if I showed you." There's doubt in his words, writ into his brow clear as day.  
  
He stands and goes to her vanity and comes back with her looking glass in his hands. There's a tension in his shoulders, stiff and statuesque. The few steps he takes to return to her bedside are heavy and shuffling.  
  
Douglas hesitates for a moment, looking glass just out of her reach. She sees his resolve harden, eyes darkening behind his glasses, as he finally holds the looking glass up so she can see.   
  
She keeps her eyes locked with his as best she can, hands coming up to take the looking glass from him. She doesn't need his help with this.  
  
Her face is a nightmare made flesh. Her flesh.

The skin beneath her left eye is sallow, more fading brown-green bruise than the supple pale skin she's accustomed to seeing. Her jaw is puffy and swollen, still proud and stubborn, but appearing to be tilted where it sits on her face. It's easy to simply chalk up to her blurry vision.  
  
It's the mess of skin on the right side of her face that takes her breath away.  
  
The skin there is raw, inflamed and angry red. It rises from her face, a mountain range grafted onto her skin. The carnage starts on her cheek bone, curving up around her eye and extending back into her hair line.  
  
There's a wetness leaking out of her eyes, and she can't blink it away. She's stuck in a staring contest with the dull-haired woman who wears a mockery of her face, someone she only half-recognizes.  
  
Douglas' gentle hands pry the looking glass away from her, setting it face down on the nightstand beside her. She lets him do it, stiff fingered and confused. The last thing she remembered was Malcolm leaving the house, a storm of cheap whiskey and shouting. Things are blurry after that, a pit of blank space seeking a painter.  
  
Could it have been Samuel Grant that did this to her? Or Cobbs Pond, slippery as an eel, working his way out of the Magistrates hands so quickly? She doesn't have all of the information that she wants, but she knows she's going to have more than enough time to dig it up.  
  
Elizabeth closes her eyes and leans her head against the headboard, tears leaking from her eyes freely. It's a show of weakness she isn't used to, but there's no point in stopping it. Douglas, it seems, has already seen the weakest sides of her without her knowing.  
  
She can feel his eyes on her, his hand still on her thigh above the quilt.  
  
“The doctor's done everythin' he can,” Douglas says gently, “but it'll scar. And there's nothin' to be done 'bout that.”

His thumb is gentle against her cheek, gliding over her skin just below where the pain is the worst.

She blinks her eyes open.

Even as a blur, Douglas' hair is a mess. She wants to tell him that he looks terrible, how could he have let himself go like this, he needs to clean himself up this instant, but even attempting to open her maw sends blisters of pain through her face.  
  
Trying to focus, however, is draining; Elizabeth finds herself closing her eyes against her will, the wetness still streaking down her face.  
  
A heavy sigh, and the weight from her mattress and leg is lifted. "I'll. I'll send a runner to fetch the doctor and Josephette. Wouldn't want to keep them waiting, would we?"  
  
As he leaves, she manages to croak, "Take a bath."  
  
He laughs, giddy.  
  
It's a noise she's going to keep with her, though she doesn't quite understand why.

* * *

Douglas doesn't go back into Elizabeth's room with the doctor, choosing again to wait in the hall just outside of her room. He doesn't pace this time, like he had just a few months ago. There is a lighter reason for the visit, this time, and Malcolm isn't around to drag him down a well of sorrow.  
  
Elizabeth's door opens and the doctor comes scurrying out, large smile on his face.  
  
"Thank God for a miracle," the doctor says to him, clapping his old wrinkly hands together. "It will be quite a while yet to see if your wife will make a full recovery, Mr. Brown, but the chances are high. She's aware of her surroundings, though with a slight bit of amnesia. I'll come a-callin' in a few days, to check on her, but in the meantime watch her memory. Something in that noggin of hers might not be as right as it seems."  
  
"She's going to resent that you had this conversation with me instead of her," Douglas tells the old man good naturedly, clasping the proffered limb with both hands and shaking it vigorously. "And she's going to let you know about it the next time you speak."  
  
"I think I can take it," the doctor laughs. "She's just a woman."  
  
Douglas laughs, too, at how wrong the smaller man is.

* * *

Josephette is a welcome sight.  
  
Her best friend is a ray of sunshine in these dark times, restrained and proper as she is. She makes herself home in the chair Douglas has placed next to her bed immediately, hands folded in her lap.  
  
She is quick to catch Elizabeth up on the business dealings of the past two and a half months--of the steady sales, the pride some of the girls take in their work for them, of the pelt acquisitions.  
  
There is one thing she hasn't spoken of, though--one thing that has been stark in Elizabeth's mind since she woke up.  
  
"Harp's pelts?" The earlier injection of morphine has made speaking less painful, though moving her jaw is still difficult. The small man who had called himself a doctor had said that speaking with the wound on her face would get some used to, the muscles there damaged and irreparable.  
  
Joesphette casts her eyes down to the floor quickly, just for a moment. "Grant got them," she says. "In the aftermath of finding you, going after them was forgotten. I'm still not sure how he found out about them in the first place, but Pond broke out of his cell and took the Irish girl with him to retrieve them. No one's seen or heard from Harp since."  
  
Elizabeth is too tired and numb to be properly angry. The feeling will come later, she's sure, once everything has had the chance to settle. The doctor had suggested as much.  
  
"Mr. Brown and I have done what we can to make up for it, but I'm afraid neither of us has your charm or your mind for business," she continues with a smile. "We'll make up for it, now that you're with us. "  
  
Elizabeth reaches out and takes her friend's hand, running her thumb over Josephette's knuckles.  
  
Josephette takes the action as permission to move onto other, happier things, and launches into a tale regarding the latest news from around Montreal and from Fort James.

* * *

Things have shifted, now that Elizabeth is awake.  
  
She still spends a good amount of time sleeping, the most simple of things taking too much energy from her. Even eating requires a nap afterword, and Douglas isn't quite sure what to make of an Elizabeth that doesn’t argue.  
  
It's when she's awake that he's not sure what to do with himself. He goes to the factory, helps Josephette there with what little he can; Elizabeth, after all, had married him for a puppet, a mouthpiece for her business, useful to her only for what's between his legs. Now that she's aware, he's not sure how much he can overstep into her business.  
  
Everything had been different, when they weren't sure if she could ever wake again. Josephette had given him carte blanche to do as he needed and as she needed him to, loosing his reins completely.  
  
He wasn't sure if that still stood, or if Josephette would be in trouble for what she let him get away with. His purpose in this sham of a marriage has shifted back and forth, and now he doesn't know where it is he stands.

* * *

Elizabeth Carruthers had married Douglas Brown because she wanted a puppet. Instead, she ended up with a man who let her step all over him, with a shrewd mind for business and an ego that let her run the company herself. With a man who cared for her while she was in limbo, who watched over her, who has judged her for nothing.

She might have even gotten a good man.

She isn't sure how she feels about it.

* * *

She has only had permission to properly putter around the house for a week when Malcolm Brown makes himself known.  
  
She has to use a cane as a precaution, should her head rush and send her tumbling, as it had the first time. It's helpful, too, though she won't admit it; walking too much makes her tired after so long inactive.  
  
The foyer of her home is still the same, though the blur of her vision makes it look almost foreign. It's been nearly three months, she reminds herself, since she's last seen it properly.  
  
She's halfway across the large space, cane tapping on the floor with every other fall of her slippered feet, when Malcolm lets himself in. With him comes a gust of cold air that wraps itself around her bare ankles, raising gooseflesh on her arms and the back of her neck. The change in temperature makes Elizabeth clutch her shawl tighter around her shoulders, narrowing her eyes at the intruder.  
  
"Mr. Brown," she greets, disgust clear in her voice.  
  
"Back from the dead, eh?"  
  
For the first time since she's had it, the cane in her hand seems like a weapon she's sorely tempted to use.  
  
"You are sorely mistaken, Mr. Brown. I did not die."  
  
Malcolm grunts, but doesn't move from his space before the door. He eyeballs her, from her toes to her cane and, finally, to her face.  
  
"Damned ugly sight is what you are."  
  
Elizabeth smiles at him, best she can. The left side of her mouth comes up higher, right side partially immobile due to the mass of still healing tissue. "I'm prettier than you are yet, Mr. Brown.”  
  
Slow going, but she makes it to her desk and settles herself in the chair there, ankles crossed and cane leaning against the desk.  
  
"Is there a reason you're here, or is this visit simply to rub some salt in my wounds?"  
  
The younger Mr. Brown shifts on his feet, uncharacteristically jumpy. His shoulders are hunched up near his ears, looking all the world like the chastened schoolboy she knows he never was.  
  
"You should thank my brother, y'know."  
  
Elizabeth fixes her ice-colored eyes on him, haughty.  
  
"I told him to kill ya," Malcolm elaborates, tension leaving his body a bit with each word. "To just be done with it, y'know? I didn't know you were goin' to wake. Just wanted Douglas to move on with his life. But the bastard wouldn't do it. Too noble, is what he is. Wouldn't even smother you while you might as well have been dead.”  
  
There are a number of thoughts that spring forward, a countless number of things she could say to him. That he baldly owned up to actively conspiring to her murder was astounding.  
  
"Why are you telling me this?" she finally decides, leaning back in her chair. "You could have gone your whole life without admitting to wanting me murdered in my own bed."  
  
"Thought you deserved some honesty, since you're going to live."  
  
Elizabeth nods at him, expects him to see himself out now that he's said his piece.  
  
He lingers, though, like a foul stench no candle or amount of perfume can get rid of. There's something else he wants, words trapped in his mouth; Elizabeth has seen the sight often enough among other women, though rarely on an outspoken man.  
  
Elizabeth purses her lips."What is it you really want, Malcolm?"  
  
He smiles at her, a little disbelieving, before snorting in derision rather like a horse. "Just a clean conscious, I s'pose. A more level playing field between the two of us."  
  
“And what would that entail?”  
  
Malcolm pauses for a moment, stunned into silence. It takes him only a heartbeat to get himself under control, to mask the surprise.  
  
"I want you to let him go, Elizabeth. My brother, he's got a good heart. You don't deserve him, and we both know that. Annul the marriage and be done with him.”  
  
She breathes deep, air filing her lungs and expanding her chest; holds for a moment, counting to ten in her head, before expelling the breath. The process of doing so leaves her a little dizzy.  
  
“I shall think about your . . . offer, Mr. Brown.”  
  
Dismissal is clear in her tone, and Malcolm heeds it. He turns on his heel and leaves the study without another word.

* * *

Elizabeth picks at her lunch days later, tearing the bread into tiny, bite-sized pieces with a scary precision.  
  
Josephette sits across the desk from her, ledger open on the old oak surface and quill in her hand.  
  
They're encroaching on minute seven of Elizabeth slaughtering her bread without a crumb passing her lips when Josephette finally breaks the silence.  
  
“If there is something on your mind, Elizabeth, I suggest you say it. I don't think your lunch can take any more abuse,” she says, never pausing in her work.  
  
"Mr. Brown suggested I annul the marriage." The words are harder to speak than she anticipated, and not because of the damage done to her face. There's a weight to the words, a truth there that she hadn't wanted to acknowledge. There's a reason she hadn't brought it up in the fortnight since Malcolm had been to see her.  
  
"Mr. Douglas Brown suggested you annul your marriage?" Josepette asks, wonder creeping into her voice.  
  
"No," Elizabeth says, mildly annoyed. "The other one. Malcolm." She takes her quill up in hand and starts scribbling a letter on the sheet of parchment on the desk before her, shoving her lunch to the side.  
  
A new hobby she's picked up when she's anxious is penning letters to Samuel Grant. She never sends them--they find their way into the fire quickly--but the act of simply writing out the different things she wants to do to him is cathartic. There are the mundane threats, of course, like strangulation and a gunshot to the head. And then they veer into the less-likely scenarios, like wolf attacks and flaying him alive and tarring and feathering.  
  
Cathartic, she repeats to herself.  
  
Josephette is studying her warily; from the way her friend is leaning toward her, brows drawn down, Elizabeth thinks she might have been looking at her for a while.  
  
“What is it?”  
  
"Elizabeth," she says hesitatingly. Since coming under her wing, Elizabeth had never seen her friend hesitate in any of her actions, always more sure of herself than any other person in the room. "The day before your visit to Grant . . ."  
  
Impatience creeps up her spine in the tense silence, a spider looking for somewhere to store it's venom.  
  
"The day before your visit to Grant, you and Douglas . . . consummated your marriage."  
  
The quill drops from Elizabeth's hand, splashing ink all over her papers.  
  
"We did?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
". . . and I was . . . willing?"  
  
A small smile crosses Jospehette's face. "From what you've told me, more than."  
  
She swallows past a hard lump that's formed in her throat, picks up her ink covered quill absentmindedly and ignores the mess she's made. "He's never said anything."  
  
Her friend hums, poring over her ledger again. "I didn't think he would. You had him sign the statement against Cobbs Pond immediately after."  
  
"Tit for tat?"  
  
Josephette shakes her head. "I don't believe it was, Elizabeth. We both know you've never been one for . . .physical favors."  
  
She sits on this for a moment, turns it over in her head. Turns this information and other bits inside out, strips it all down and puts it back together again.  
  
“I see,” is all she says to her friend, indifferent.  
  
Josephette allows the subject to drop.

* * *

She lies awake that night, unpacking her thoughts one a time. The facts were this:  
  
She was married to Douglas Brown. She had slept with Douglas Brown. Douglas Brown had doted on her for the two months she had been unconscious. He had been there when she had woken up. He had helped keep her business up, her coffers flush, had stood by patiently and helped where he could—and when she would accept it—to get back on her feet.  
  
He had not made a power grab. He had never been untoward with her. Josephette, even, holds him in high regard.  
  
Her mind wanders back to the day she woke up, sore and confused and exhausted. He had sounded more relieved than any man had a right to be when she woke, her name reverent on his lips.  
  
Elizabeth huffs and rolls over in her large, empty bed.

* * *

It's late.  
  
Too late, Douglas thinks, for anyone in their right mind to be knocking on his door at this time of night.  
  
He's half-dressed and half-asleep when he opens the door to his modest lodging within Elizabeth's home.  
  
He's half-dressed and wide awake when he realizes his late night visitor is none other than Elizabeth Carrutther's herself.  
  
"Were you going to tell me?" she demands, floating in like a queen in her castle. She doesn't have her cane with her, he notes distractedly.  
  
"Was I going to tell you what?" he asks, pushing his glasses farther up the bridge of his nose as he closes the door.  
  
"When did we consummate our marriage?" The other shoe, it seems, has dropped.  
  
"Before you had me sign the statement for the magistrates." It's no use lying; he had hoped, maybe, that it wouldn't come up. Their night together had been months ago, the afterglow of it for him dashed quickly at the sight of Elizabeth's near lifeless body. In the months following, his thoughts of that night had been tainted by the idea that it had happened simply because she needed the statement signed.  
  
She could have just asked, but favor for favor was more Elizabeth's style; especially if the other party wasn't consulted first.  
  
Elizabeth hums, deep in her chest, hands folded in front of her as she stands in the middle of his room. He can see the cogs in her mind working, like she's following the same train of thought he had had just moments before.  
  
"And you weren't going to mention it to me?"  
  
"It didn't seem important, Elizabeth. What with everything going on."  
  
She stares him down, chin tilted up impressively.  
  
"How did it happen, exactly?"  
  
Douglas groans, tilts his head back and casts his eyes to the ceiling, begging God to let him know what it was that he did to earn this level of ire.  
  
"Well, I do seem to recall you asking me if I liked being your dog."  
  
"And do you?"  
  
Douglas finally gets the nerve to look at her. Elizabeth has taken off her night robe, letting the dark fabric pool on the floor, revealing her nightclothes.  
In this case, the lack threreof.  
  
"Not particularly," he tells her, meeting her eyes, intent on looking no where else. It's hard not to notice that she's gained back some of the weight she lost, still spry as a sparrow. "Though I don't always mind it when you tell me what to do."  
  
She comes toward him, and he has nowhere to go, back already up against the door.  
  
Elizabeth doesn't speak again until she's well into his personal space. the floral scent he associates solely with her filling his nose. "And what is it," she asks lowly, looking up at him through thick lashes, "that you don't mind being told to do?"  
  
Her fingers are toying with the hem of his shirt, her knuckles knocking up against the jut of his hipbone.  
  
"I think you know exactly what it is," he tells her, voice husky and low, hands coming up to rest on her bare waist.  
  
Their mouths meet, teeth and tongues clicking together; Elizabeth's fingers tangle up in the fabric of his shirt, pulling upwards on it, hand gliding over his rib cage.  
  
Douglas' hands drift lower; he picks her up and carries her to the bed, mouths still locked.

* * *

"How did you know," he asks in the quiet hours of morning, "that our marriage had been consummated?"  
  
"Josephette told me." Her confidant, her best friend, her business partner. Douglas should have known that there were no secrets between the two of them, but he hadn't counted on Elizabeth finding the time between their carnal activities and her visit to Samuel Grant to the woman of the development.  
  
He kisses her slowly, lazily, fingers tracing her jaw line.  
  
"Then I'm glad she did."  
  
Elizabeth pushes herself up onto an elbow to look at him from above. He can hardly make out her face in the dark of the room; the tips of her hair tickle his shoulder.  
"You were never going to say anything about it to me, were you? You were just going to sit on it like a mother hen."  
  
"There was never a good time to bring it up, Elizabeth. How do you explain something like this to someone who doesn't remember it?"  
  
She hums again, a habit he's noticed she's picked up in the recent weeks. “Malcolm told me he tried to get you to kill me.”  
  
“Oh, he did?” It's impossible to pick apart his brother's motives, to figure out what, exactly, would possess him to tell Elizabeth that. “And what else did he tell you?”  
  
“That you wouldn't.” A beat, and then, “He also wanted me to annul the marriage.”  
  
“Elizabeth,” Douglas says lowly.  
  
“I'm not going to unless you want me to, you ninny,” Elizabeth cuts him off. “If I was going to go ahead and annul it, do you really think I would have thrown myself at you?”  
He laughs quietly, pushes his face into her neck and nips at the skin there. She shudders as he responds, “I never know with you. Unless you absolutely want to, I have no problem with staying married. I've come to care for you a great deal, Elizabeth.”  
  
Her stomach does a funny flip at his words, heart constricting.  
  
Douglas pulls his head back from her neck, brings a hand up to her face and gently thumbs at the edge of her scar. “Nothing is going to change that; I'll speak with Malcolm, tell him to stay out of our business.” He brings his face in close, kisses the edge of her scar gently.  
  
They lock eyes as he pulls back, slow grin spreading over Elizabeth's features.  
  
"This scar is hideous," she tells him. "I can't wait to make Samuel Grant pay for it."  
  
He smiles and kisses the scar again before moving down to her plump lips, knowing her words are the truth.

* * *

The war against Samuel Grant resumes.  
  
Her opening volley is a small one, though costly. In the long run, the monetary gains will bring their funds about even. The immediate result is much more satisfying.  
  
She has employed Malcolm in no small bit of sabotage; he's suited for the task in a way neither Elizabeth nor Douglas are, open and easy with other men with working hands. A bit of booze helps his disposition greatly.  
  
If Elizabeth passes him a coin purse filled to the brim with silver and sends him in the direction of the ale house Samuel Grant's workers frequent, suggesting he go make a few friends, she isn't at fault.  
  
Especially if no one shows up to work the next day, or the expedition group that was slated to go trapping for a new batch of pelts doesn't leave, no one is to blame but themselves.

* * *

The second act is more subtle, with a few working parts.  
  
It takes careful planning, and it requires Elizabeth to work better with Douglas and Malcolm than she has in the past.  
  
In the time she had been laid up, Douglas had done a decent job of keeping the business run properly. There were a few investments that turned out better, investments she hadn't thought of making, a handful of business partners she hadn't thought of pursuing. Her second husband ran the business much better than the first; working with his brothers had been his downfall, she knows now. He knew the right words to say and when to say them, what hands to grease, whose eyes needed to be averted. He did it all, and he didn't have to worry about the color of his skin of what was between his legs.  
  
(Elizabeth had thought, once, that she might have liked to have been born a man. But being a woman had more than it's fair share of advantages, too, and she had learned them inside and out. Men are so easily manipulated by a bit of drink and pale skin, but a hushed tone and half-lidded eyes.)  
  
Carruther's and Co wasn't exactly booming, but it was starting to float a little higher than it had been before she was incapacitated. The tireless work done by Joesphette and the girls at the factory had seen to that. Douglas has contributed a bit.  
  
Malcolm had kept the floor clean, she guessed.  
  
But now she keeps Malcolm plied with money, keep sending him to the different ale houses Samuel Grant's men frequent, keeps them drunk off their asses.  
Josephette keeps the books balanced, figures in the money to keep Grant's men drunk, keeps the girls in line and working.  
  
Douglas is there to court Grant's business partners in a way Elizabeth finds that she can't—she has spent so long relying on her looks and charm to manipulate men to where she wanted them, had to use them to wrangle even the barest of business deals. Thanks to the scar on her face, half of the equation is no longer an option. While she is there to help Douglas, she lets him do most of the talking.  
  
He has a way with words.

Specifically, those of other people's.

It was something she had to take time to study, to be someone on the outside of the conversation and simply listen. The very act went against every fiber in her being, to idle by while a man did the talking, and for once in her life it wasn't annoying.

Douglas takes the words of other people and turns them back on them, subtle like the knife she keeps tucked in her sleeve now. It's nearly an art form, the way he does it, molding and shaping them into something else.

Between the three of them, the roots of Samuel Grant's kingdom begin to crumble.

 

* * *

 

It's not long before Douglas begins to have his doubts.  
  
There's a desk between them, a fire roaring the grate. Dinner had been hours ago, and Josephette has already excused herself for the night. There's a few fingers of brandy left in each of their glasses; companionable silence reins the room, interrupted occasionally by the pop of the fire.  
  
Douglas shifts restlessly in his chair for the umpteenth time, drawing Elizabeth out of her book.

“Out with it before you break my fourth favorite chair.”

Douglas shifts again his his seat, downs some of his brandy. “Do you really think it's wise to keep going after Samuel Grant? He nearly killed you the last time, Elizabeth.”

She thinks about her missing teeth, the way her jaw aches when she chews or speaks for too long. About the thick, ropy scar that lines up perfectly with her cheekbone. About the way her vision blurs and her eyes hurt if she looks at something for too long, or if the lighting is too poor. The way it hurts to smile.

Elizabeth thinks about how Malcolm won't look her in the face, always just to the left of her head. About how Josephette does her level best to take care of most of the correspondence and the books now. The cook makes sure there's always something semi-liquid on the menu for every meal.

“I made the mistake of thinking Samuel Grant was weak without his lover beside him,” she finally says. “I won't make the same mistake again.”

Douglas puts his head in his hands, shoulder's sagging. Elizabeth can't tell if it's disappointment or frustration, but she has a feeling it's more than a bit of both.

Finally, he looks up.

“If you're--” He stops for a moment, rubs at his eyes and heaves a sigh heavier than anything she's ever heard out of him. “If you're going to keep waging a war with Grant, at least make sure you have a witness in the room with you.”

There's a flush high on Elizabeth's cheekbones, a set to her shoulders that Douglas knows means trouble.

“Simply because you've taken pleasure in my body, Mr. Brown, does not mean you get to suggest what it is I get to do! Because we are married gives you no right to decide what it is I do! Just because you care for me does not mean that you have any right to dictate whom it is I see or speak with, let alone who gets to be in a room with me! I am not weak, Douglas! Nothing Samuel Grant has done to me or will do to me is going to change that! And if I want to waltz into his home with no one at my back and shoot him in his fucking head, I am going to do just that!”

“Elizabeth,” he says when she's run out of steam. “I know you're not weak. I know that what he did to you hasn't changed anything about you. With the way you get under people's skin, it's not practical for you to be in a room alone with any of them. You keep poaching his clients like this, keep goading him on, and you might not make it out alive next time.

“I'm not trying to stop you. I'm just tryin' to keep you alive.”

"I don't need your help," she hisses, finally slamming the book shut.

"You're right," he says, nothing in his words meant to placate her. "I know that. I'm offering it because I know you don't need it. I'm offering it in case you want it."  
  
She sags back into her chair. Downs her brandy in one swift gulp and pours herself another.  
  
Finally, grudgingly, she says, “Thank you.”

* * *

Elizabeth Carruthers calls on Samuel Grant on a spring afternoon.  
  
The roads of Montreal are slick and muddy, ruts from carriage wheels making it dangerous to walk. Winter is just beginning to loosen it's grip, snow still apparent and slowly melting, adding to the mess.  
  
Douglas is on her arm, keeping her steady. She would have liked to call on Grant alone, to show him that he hasn't changed anything about her, other than her face. Her husband had had a point, though, suggesting she needed a witness she could trust. She's sure Grant wouldn't be so stupid to try and kill her again. But she hadn't counted on him trying the first time, either.  
  
One of his footmen open the door at Douglas' knock. Elizabeth puts on her best, brightest smile.  
  
"The Browns," she tells the man as the Douglas startles at the name. "Here to see Mr. Grant."  
  
Every bit of sabotage, of careful planning, of even more careful purchases and acquisitions have been leading up to this moment.  
  
The footman lets them in without hesitation, bowing slightly as they pass. There is no noise in Grant's cavern of a home, servants he's hired paid to keep themselves scarce and quiet. The plush rugs, the new wall hangings—everything has been turned around and rearranged to keep any noise muted. She keeps a steady stream of pointless conversation up with the man to spite the noiseless atmosphere.  
  
She feels like she's walking into a nightmare. There's a pit of dread she hadn't anticipated, forming in the pit of her stomach, growing and growing the closer they get to the only door left that separates her from the room she nearly died in.  
  
Since the incident with Grant, very few things about that day have come back to her.  
  
Snippets, mostly—Douglas' rather fine backside, Josephette's face, Samuel Grant looming over her, pinning her to the ground, statuette clutched in his hand. _I'm a good man_.  
  
She still isn't sure how she managed to get away.

* * *

Elizabeth sweeps into the room with a careless air about her, pushing all of her other thoughts and feelings down until she's made entirely of spite.  
  
Grant sits behind his desk, regal, Pond hunched over his shoulder like a vengeful bird of prey. Their countenance changes when they catch sight of their guest; Pond straightens up, pulls at his waistcoat. Grant freezes and pales, a frightened deer, showing weakness in a way that makes her pulse quicken.  
  
“Why, Mr. Grant, you look quite ill,” she purrs.  
  
“Mr and Mrs Brown, how--” Pond pauses for a moment, seeming to search for the word he wants to use. Elizabeth has a choice number of them. “--lovely it is to see you again.”

“It's Carruthers, actually,” Douglas corrects glibly, startling everyone in the room. Elizabeth's smile grows a fraction of an inch wider, tender flesh over her scar stretching. “But you'd know all about bein' someone's bitch, wouldn't ya?”

Grant's face goes whiter, then red; Elizabeth's breath catches in her chest, nails digging into the crook of her husband's arm. It feels like the air's gone out of the room, tension thickening like fog rolling in off the bay.

Cobbs Pond smiles slowly, a promise of violence; something cold is slithering in her belly, writhing and alive and sucking the life out of her. These men are wolves, she knows, no sheeps clothing on them.

The warmth of Douglas next to her is a reminder that the violence of these men nearly killed her, but it hasn't made her weak.

(Malcolm is waiting outside to make sure they come out unharmed, freezing his balls off in the cold and muttering angrily all the while. If anything happens to them tonight, it won't go unnoticed. And, with Malcolm heavily involved, it won't go unanswered for.)

“Elizabeth,” Grant finally greets, voice warm with a familiarity one gets from attempting to bash anothers brain's out. “You look well. When Mr. Pond and I heard of your accident, of the horrible way you were found, why. We just weren't sure what we do if you perished.”  
  
His words make it feel like there's a snake writhing in her gut.  
  
"The rumors of my condition were greatly exaggerated, Mr. Grant," she says smoothly, flatting on her skirts as she sits. Douglas takes up his place just behind her shoulder to the right, directly in her blind spot. His presence is a comforting one, as she's learned to accept and appreciate, though she tells no one. "As you can see, I am alive and well. In my right mind, even, which is more--" Elizabeth laughs breathlessly, a little cruel "--than can be said for whomever picked your new rug."  
  
The rug she speaks of isn't hideous on it's own--it's quite fetching, all deep blues and light browns--but it's what she suspects is underneath it that adds to the horrendous quality.  
  
Grant's jaw tightens even more (he's going to break his teeth, crush them down to their roots, and she's just going to laugh like a lady), and Pond lowers his eyebrows. Just for a moment, a look of open hostility crosses the man's face, and Elizabeth relishes in it. It's likely he's the one who picked out the rug.  
  
"Is this what you came here to do, Mrs. . ." Grant looks at Douglas for a moment, eyes flicking between the two of them as he hesitates, ". . . Carruthers? Demean the interior of my home?"  
  
Elizabeth keeps the well-meaning, sharp smile on her face, though she can feel the muscles in her face beginning to tire, the scar pulling at her scalp.  
  
"Of course not, Mr. Grant. I simply came to assure you of my well being. I fear you might have been worried for my absence, the way the rumors in Montreal tend to spread."  
  
Grant smiles at her, all teeth, none of it reaching his eyes.  
  
"How careless of me," he says, touching a heart to his chest in mock sympathy. To anyone outside of the room, to anyone that didn't know the history between the two of them, they might assume the sympathy to be real. "I should have called on you myself, earlier. Sent you a get well gift. Silly me, my mind has been wrapped up in business dealings."  
  
The temperature in the rooms seems to keep dropping, everyone icy toward each other. Soon, it might even rival the temperature outside.  
  
“How is your business, Mr. Grant? I've been hearing rumors that you've been having troubles, lately.”  
  
“Nothing we can't recover from,” Pond cuts in smoothly, voice like steel, before Grant can make a fool of himself. “Rumors are so unreliable, as you know. Is there anything else we could help you with, Mrs. Carruthers? I can't help but notice you're looking a little . . . peaked today.”  
  
Elizabeth knows better than to overstay their welcome. She smiles at them as Douglas helps her stand, playing the part of doting husband far better than she thought he would.  
“Of course,” she cedes. “You men must be getting back to work.”  
  
They do not hurry toward the door; Elizabeth's steps are even and measured, precise, though they skirt the rug she knows hides the bloodstain in the wood.  
  
“Mrs. Carruthers,” Grant calls just as they reach the door.  
  
Elizabeth stops, looks at him over her shoulder.  
  
“My footman has your coat. The one you . . . forgot the last time you were here.”  
  
It's another tense moment of silence before Elizabeth thanks him.

* * *

“Carruthers?” Elizabeth asks as they near Malcom.  
  
Douglas tilts his head. “Seems appropriate, I think.”  
  
“Will you hurry up! I'm freezin' my fuckin' prick off here!”

* * *

Declan Harp is a mountain of man.  
  
Elizabeth has always been intrigued by him, a rouge agent of the Hudson's Bay Company. Their business dealings had been few and risky, with a higher return on them than Elizabeth had expected. Dealing with the man wasn't difficult--he was straightforward, precise as a knife, and didn't care about Elizabeth's sex.  
  
He wasn't so bad to look at, either.  
  
There is a woman with him, this time, with fire for hair and steel for a spine. She's hard eyed and sharp mouthed, and Elizabeth decides she likes her before Declan Harp has half a chance to open his mouth.  
  
Sticking out her hand, she announces, "I'm Elizabeth Carruthers. It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss . . .?"  
  
Her hand is taken and shaken firmly by the rough hands of a working woman. "Emberly." Her Scottish brogue is thicker than her husband's. "Grace Emberly, ma'am."  
  
Elizabeth feels more than sees Grace's eyes sticking to the scar that is stark on her face. She smiles as they release hands, motions to it nonchalantly. "A gift," she says, "from Mister Samuel Grant."  
Besides Miss Emberly, Declan Harp narrows his eyes in understanding. "That's two of us he's tried to kill, then."  
  
Elizabeth smiles beatifically at him. "He had the nerve to do this to me himself with his own two hands. What he and Pond did to you was . . . less personal, I suspect. But I digress. What can I do for you, Mr. Harp?"  
  
"I was hoping we could discuss a business arrangement, Mrs. Carruthers. One that might actually go through?”  
  
Elizabeth nods her head, understanding his meaning. “Of course. I believe you know what time dinner is, Mr. Harp? Miss Emberly is more than welcome to join us.”

* * *

"You've changed the way you do things," Harp says over drinks after dinner, motioning to Josephette and Douglas with his glass. Emberly is at his side, nursing her own glass, eyeing the other three like vipers ready to strike. She reminds Elizabeth of a caged wolf, agitated, teeth bared.  
  
All of them are sequestered in her study, fire roaring in the fireplace and basking everything in an orange-red glow. The scotch in their cups makes Elizabeth's chest warm, head a little muzzy, scar on her face a little less painful so she can speak more.  
  
“I've had to.” She motions to her face with her glass. “Needs must and whatnot.”  
  
An agreement has been reached between Harp and herself, a contract to be drawn up the next day. She had allowed Douglas and Josephette to stay at the table, this time, though both allowed her the thrill of throwing her weight around and negotiating things herself.  
  
Once the problem of Samuel Grant is solved, Elizabeth likes to think that she might be able to go back to being completely in charge.  
  
Perhaps when men realize she destroyed an empire, they'll look past her face.

* * *

With the Black Wolf Company allied with her, sabotaging and working against Samuel Grant becomes laughably easy.  
  
In the span of a few months, most of Grant's pelt supply doesn't make it to his factories. The ones that do are low quality, hardly suitable for production. Contracts that he had promised to fill are suddenly incomplete, his wares a lower grade, his workers quickly losing morale.  
  
One by one by one, and then in twos, and then in droves, Samuel Grant's business partners leave him. Elizabeth doesn't manage to net all of them, some of them seeking business contacts outside Montreal, but she gains more than enough to make the asinine amounts of money she sends Declan Harp's way worth it.  
  
Fur traders, having sold to Grant for so long and suddenly finding that he can't afford their wares any longer, come to her as well. Her coin is good, and she leaves Douglas to haggle down the prices and sort through the furs, her vision and frequent headaches making her less suited for the task than she was before.  
  
The effects on Grant aren't immediately noticed by the public at large. But when Elizabeth passes the man in the market, Douglas on her arm and Josephette at her other side, she notes the bags slowly forming beneath the American's eyes. The slow but sure dejected slant his shoulder's take on. The way Cobbs Pond's face goes from being mischievous and deadly to looking like he permanently has rotting eggs shoved up his nose. How Clenna Dolan, always so scarce in the Grant household before, is suddenly no where to be found.  
  
The Irish girl, of course, was but a bystander she had used as a pawn. A bystander of the war Grant and herself had been waging. And while some dark corner of her heart ached for the girl she had thrown to the wolves, Elizabeth knows it was only partly her own doing. Other factors had put Clenna in that position as well, a woven rope pulled tight around a pale Irish neck.  
  
There are casualties in every war.

* * *

Samuel Grant leaves Montreal with his tail between his legs, Cobbs Pond at his back.  
  
Kentucky is their destination, or so Elizabeth is told. Neither of them had had the nerve to say goodbye, to come to the heart of the web and bid farewell to the spider queen that sits there, triumphant.  
  
Elizabeth is almost sad to see them go.  
  
The men had been worthy adversaries, save the part where Grant tried to kill her. Despite that, she nearly pitied the man--she had stripped him of his reputation, of his business, of most of his worth. She and her allies had torn him asunder with careful planning and an undue amount of stress.  
  
She is acutely aware that she wouldn't have been able to do this on her own, no matter how pigheaded and stubborn she had been. Without Josephette, the company never could have ran as smoothly as it does. The two of them know the ins and outs of every step of the process separately, yes, but between the books and the business deals and the day-to-day side of things, the company would have gone under. Running it alone was impossible.

* * *

 

Elizabeth Carruthers had married Douglas Brown because she needed a puppet.

Somehow, she ended up with a good man.


End file.
